Artists in Residence
Ceci Lopez
Ceci Lopez has always been a creator, but took her several decades to recognize it. In 2024, at the age of 54, she found art as a way to heal deep grief following the unexpected passing of her mom. This newly found way of engaging with emotions opened her to recognize her deeply held love for making art. She joined the Milan Art Institute in April 2024 and began a journey that would transform her life, worldview, and the way she engages the power within to mitigate the powers without (remembering the wisdom of the self). Art allowed Ceci to tear down deep walls erected to protect her heart from her feelings. Finding art as a way to move through grief reminded her to live from the heart, a teaching she received as a child from her great-grand father.
Ceci’s art is all about feelings and this has helped her in her quest to reconnect with her ancestral wisdom and re-center her sense of self in her identity. With her art, she invites the viewer to enter a world where there is joy, action, emotion, tenderness, and love. A world as it should be, free from rigidity and the fear of feelings. A world where we recognize the energetic world around us as a living teacher, as a partner in how we create life; Art as a gateway to nature and nature leads us back to the heart.
She is a prolific painter and in a very short time has produced several pieces that have been part of juried and not-juried show. Ceci is a member of the Allied Arts of Whatcom County, The Whatcom Arts Guild, and is an artist in residence at Whatcom Arts Center, studio1.
